Brad Davison scored 17 of his 23 points in the first half to lift 13th-ranked Wisconsin to a 73-62 victory over Rhode Island on Wednesday in Madison.

Davison, who entered the contest averaging just 6.3 points per game, outscored the Rams by himself in the first half. He drained his first three 3-point attempts to stake the Badgers to an early 10-2 lead and made all six of his free throws to push the advantage to 33-16 at intermission.

Davison finished a perfect 12-for-12 at the charity stripe for Wisconsin (4-1), which bounced back from its 67-65 setback to in-state rival Marquette on Friday.

Micah Potter had 13 points, Aleem Ford added 11 and Nate Reuvers became the Badgers' all-time blocks leader with 155 after denying Jeremy Sheppard on a layup midway into the first half. The block snapped a tie with Ethan Happ, who set the school record during his career from 2015-19.

Rhode Island's Fatts Russell struggled to find his range on Wednesday. Russell, who entered the game averaging a team-leading 17.6 points, finished with eight after making just 3 of 14 shots from the floor.

Sheppard scored a team-high 13 points for the Rams (3-3), who replaced No. 25 Louisville as Wisconsin's opponent after the Cardinals' program indefinitely paused all team-related activities last week due to a positive COVID-19 test.

Rhode Island didn't help itself in the first half. The Rams missed all eight of their 3-point attempts and committed 11 turnovers, with Wisconsin converting those turnovers into 15 points.

Rhode Island showed a bit of fire coming out intermission, with Malik Martin sandwiching a layup and short jumper around a bucket from Russell to cut its deficit to 40-26.

Ford sank a 3-pointer coming out of the timeout, Potter made a pair of layups and Jonathan Davis added two baskets to give Wisconsin its largest lead at 53-31.

Sheppard drained the Rams' first 3-pointer with 11:02 remaining in the second half and capped a 9-0 surge with another shot from beyond the arc to trim the deficit to 60-51 with 5:15 left. The Badgers, however, kept the Rams at bay the rest of the way.

--Field Level Media